


A Terrible Beauty is Born

by foxiea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Black Paladin Pidge, Body Dysphoria, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Internal Conflict, Introspection, Lion Swap, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Pidge Birthday Exchange 2018, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Roleswap, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 15:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxiea/pseuds/foxiea
Summary: When Katie Holt leaves Earth for Kerberos, she expects to come home in fourteen months as a seasoned pilot and space explorer.Instead, she comes back after two years, a fugitive of an alien empire with an uncertain sense of identity.Then, Voltron happens.Or, snapshots of Pidge as the Black Paladin, and how that came to be.





	A Terrible Beauty is Born

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DianaSolaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/gifts).



> Title from the poem Easter, 1916 by W. B. Yeats.
> 
> This fic is a gift for Elliott (MoonlitWaterSunnyRiver) for the Pidge Birthday Exchange 2018 - I sincerely apologise for not having the whole thing complete. I wanted to fulfil your Black Paladin Pidge request and decided it needed some context and backstory, and then the whole plot just ran away on me. I hope you enjoy, and that the wait isn't too much of a nuisance.
> 
> Please don't hurt me for my super basic knowledge of digital networks employed in this chapter I am but a lowly software engineer.

The Kerberos space shuttle cuts a stark silhouette against the clear blue sky, and Katie Holt stares up at it in awe.

She’s been waiting eagerly for launch day, for the perfect weather conditions that would allow the Garrison to sign off on their journey to the edge of the solar system.  Now that the day is finally here though, now that she has to say goodbye to her mother and to Matt, she finds her heart aching for home before she’s even left.

But missing Earth isn’t enough to make her give up her dreams of seeing the stars, or the opportunity to learn from best-pilot-of-his-generation Takashi Shirogane.  She still couldn’t quite believe her dad had managed to pull that one off, no matter how much influence at the Garrison he had.

Besides, Earth will still be here when they get back.  Earth will be waiting for them, following their progress via the Garrison the whole time.

They take photos to commemorate the occasion - one of the Kerberos crew, proudly decked out in uniform; one of the Holts, all together and grinning widely; one of her parents; one of her and Matt.  They even manage to convince Shiro and the cadet he’s brought along to pose for one. Katie recognises him as the fighter pilot Shiro’s been mentoring the past few months, Keith Kogane.

Katie’s a damn good pilot in her own right, but she’s got nothing on Shiro, and, if his word is to be believed, by the time they come back to Earth Keith will be able to outmaneuver them both blindfolded.  Katie’s not so sure about that. Keith might have raw talent, but Katie’s got a brilliant mind and fourteen months in space to learn everything Shiro knows and figure out how to do it _better_.

A little competition can be a good motivator.

Matt waves a hand in front of her face, drawing her attention away from Shiro and Keith.  He’s holding his spare pair of glasses, the ones with round lenses and a silver frame, offering them to her.  “Take them,” he insists.

Katie doesn’t need glasses, she never has, but she takes them from Matt anyway.  She turns them over in her hand, curious. “What are you giving me these for?” She asks.

“So a part of me can go to space with you.”

Katie glances at the glasses, then back at Matt, her eyes narrowing.  “What’s the _real_ reason?”

Matt glances around quickly, then motions for her to bend down so he can whisper conspiratorially.  “I embedded a micro-cam in the lenses.  It transmits on the same frequency as the messages we usually send Dad when he’s on a mission, so you can show me all the cool things you’re going to see in space.”

Katie frowns.  “There’s no way you can send images over that connection, it’s too expensive, and the packet loss alone-”

“Is already taken care of,” Matt replies smoothly.  “Forward error correction, duh.”

“How could you manage that with such a limited bandwidth?”

Matt just looks at her with a smug grin plastered on his face.  “Where there's a Holt, there's a way.  I’ll spill my secrets once you’re back, _Pidge_.”

Katie sticks out her tongue at his teasing, but she pulls him into a tight embrace nonetheless.  With Matt’s quick brain, she’s certain he’ll be accompanying them out to space before long.  Genius runs in the family, after all.

“I’m gonna miss you, you know,” she says.  Matt hugs her tighter at that.

“I’ll miss you too,” he replies, his voice muffled by the fabric of her Officer’s uniform.  “So you’d better keep in touch!”

“I will,” she promises, and Matt finally lets go.

“Or I’ll be coming into space after you!” He looks up at her with such fierceness, such determination, that Katie believes him.

From behind them, Sam chuckles.  “And leave your poor mother all alone?  I think not.”

He pulls Matt away to say his own goodbye, and Colleen approaches Katie with a bittersweet smile.  She’s just as captivated by the universe as the rest of her family, but Katie knows being without her husband for months at a time has been taxing on her - and now she’ll be without her daughter too.

“I’m so proud of you, Katie,” Colleen says, and pulls her into a hug.  The smell of the bread loaf she baked that morning still clung to her, and Katie breathes in deep, hoping to keep the memory of that scent with her.  Something to remind her of home. As enthusiastic as Sam’s descriptions of space-peas are, family meals are something she’s definitely going to miss.

“I love you,” Katie says, and immediately feels silly.  Surely there are a million better things to say in this moment, but Colleen smiles and presses a kiss to her forehead, so maybe she’s done okay.  She’s never had to say goodbye like this before, she’s always been a home bird.

“I love you too,” Colleen says.  “Stay safe, and come home. We’ll be waiting for you both.”

A hand comes to rest on her shoulder.  "Time to go, Katie-kat," Sam says gently.

She squeezes her arms around Colleen one last time before pulling away.  "Bye, mom."

"Good luck, Katie," Colleen gives her a small wave before turning her attention to Sam.

Katie makes her way into the shuttle, allowing her parents some privacy while they say goodbye.  When she enters, she finds Shiro already strapped in to his seat. There’s no family present for him to say goodbye to, just Keith.  She’d dragged out her goodbyes as long as she possibly could - how long had Shiro been sitting there, alone?

“You ready, Pidge?” He asks when she settles into her seat next to him.  

Katie makes a face.  “Did Matt tell you to call me that?”

“Guilty as charged.” Shiro smiles.  “He said it should remind you of home.”

Katie glances to the side, like she might be able to glare at Matt one last time through the reinforced alloy of the spacecraft.

“He knows he can call me that dumb nickname himself whenever he wants to ‘remind me of home’,” she mutters.

Shiro spares her a quizzical glance, and Katie realises her dad hasn’t filled him in on the Holt family secret.  She isn’t about the turn down the chance to brag, not about interstellar comms she engineered from the ground up.  She flashes him a cocky grin, and reaches over the console to flick off the ground control comms, just for a few minutes.  Her hand brushes against Shiro’s, his skin warm to the touch.

“Looks like I have some things to teach you too, Ace Pilot.  Lesson one: what the Garrison doesn’t know won’t hurt them. Lesson two: as I recently learned, where there’s a Holt, there’s a way.”


End file.
